Buttercups

The buttercups have been splendid this year, as has the cow parsley where it's been allowed to grow unimpeded.

First hot day of the summer with temperatures well into the mid 20s C. Basil was lethargic. He's very hairy, for him, and is due for a grooming and haircut tomorrow.

I decided to take him for a walk along dark shady lanes where it was damp underfoot, but we had to come back through the flood meadow at the bottom of the slope, which is brimful of buttercups and edged by the cow parsley.

Normally Basil would bounce through the buttercups but he didn't feel up to it today.

Off to Theatre Royal Concert Hall this evening for Opera North's presentation of Das Rheingold, the first of the four operas in Wagner's Ring Cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen. Nobody wins in the Ring. Fabulous music. The man in front of me was big. I couldn't see through his head and he wouldn't stop fidgeting, but he glanced round the two times I rustled my jelly baby bag to try and retrieve some sweeties.